Harry Potter and the Voice of Reason
by LesBubbles
Summary: "Just because the children are not yours, it does not mean you cannot love them." —Albus Dumbledore. A story where Harry has parents, friends and oh, he likes to study in his free time. Somebody once told him that knowledge was power. A story trying to give a fresh new look to the characters and places we all love. (undergoing reworks, see profile for update details)
1. Chapter 1: The Night

**Disclaimer:** The Harry Potter Universe belongs to J. K. Rowling, I am just writing for fun, and I make no profits from this endeavour.

**Warning:** Even though I have no specific intention of writing any of it, this story might eventually contain swearing, violence and adult themes. I will not be putting disclaimers at the start of every chapter, as that is a bit of a spoiler, but there should not be anything particularly disturbing here. Please refer back to the rating and description of the story for the up-to-date rating.

**A/N:** First time writing fanfiction. I do not have a specific plan for this, but there are a few things I have up my sleeve that I think you will enjoy. All feedback is appreciated. Also in search for a beta.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ I — Tʜᴇ Nɪɢʜᴛ Tʜᴀᴛ Tᴜʀɴᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴇ Wᴏʀʟᴅ Uᴘsɪᴅᴇ Dᴏᴡɴ, Yᴇᴛ Nᴏʙᴏᴅʏ Nᴏᴛɪᴄᴇᴅ**

"_If you don't do what needs to be done, the world will go on turning; just as broken as before."_

—_Gellert Grindelwald_

* * *

With an inaudible pop, a man appeared in a driveway, left hand releasing the tiny hourglass as the right waved a gnarled wand.

He wore robes of deep purple, slightly wrinkled yet worn with a confidence that spoke of hard-earned experience more than his long white beard spoke of his age. It was not the kind of person you would expect to see at three in the morning in Surrey. His name was Albus Dumbledore.

His screening spells showing no-one close by, Dumbledore strode into the street from behind a hedgerow, flicking open one of his many knick-knacks. Oh, how he loved when he got an opportunity to use one of them! Most of the time they sat around in his office making noise; a shame, really.

_Ah, here we go_, he thought as the nearby lamps went out one by one, their light speeding towards the small device.

* * *

_Eight … six … four. There. _

He sighed. He really did not want to do this. But it needed doing, so it would be done. And with that thought he knocked on the door. After a few minutes, he knocked again, after casting a small _Sonorus _charm on the door. Hopefully this time they would hear it.

He was contemplating whether he should return in the morning. Grumpy, sleep-addled people generally weren't good conversation partners. Sadly, he already used his time turner for all its worth today, running damage control and—

"Who's there?"

"Mr. Dursley, I have information about your family you may wish to hear." Dumbledore answered.

The door to number 4 Privet Drive opened, revealing a very annoyed Vernon Dursley.

"Yes? What is it you want, mister…"

"—Dumbledore. Albus Dumbledore," he said. "I think it best if we went inside, this is not something one would discuss in public," he added.

Vernon looked at the man, noticing his clothes—_were those pyjamas?_—then his beard and then his concerned eyes. Being woken up in the middle of the night was not pleasant, by a stranger of all people, but he did seem sincere. "Come in."

* * *

"—I have come to tell you that my friends, your sister and her husband, were killed just after midnight, Mrs. Dursley. They had been attacked by a … terrorist. Mrs. Dursley, have you told your husband…" he trailed off, hoping she would understand.

"No," a bare whisper in reply. He didn't really know whether it was an exclamation of horror or an answer to his question. _Damn_.

"What? Who?" _Ah_. Vernon Dursley's face was currently cycling between angry at the man for upsetting his wife, concerned for his wife and yawning.

"Mr. Dursley, your wife's sister was a witch; she married a wizard—"

"That's impossible! They were at our wedding, they were perfectly normal people!" Vernon exclaimed.

Dumbledore chuckled at the outburst, "They were normal people, Mr. Dursley. They were also wizards, citizens of Wizarding Britain. Our two worlds kept separate ever since the Salem witch burning of 1692, for obvious reasons. However, I feel you need to know this as their son, young Harry, is now an orphan and needs someone who would take care of him. I have no clue how it happened, but Harry survived, destroying the Dark Lord who killed his parents and ending a war."

"Give me a minute," Vernon said as he made a beeline for the kitchen, "I need something stronger for this, can I offer you anything?"

"No, thank you, I think a clear head would serve me better right now, Mr. Dursley," Dumbledore replied. Petunia Dursley just shook her head.

A few moments later, Vernon returned nursing a cup of scotch.

"Let me get this straight. My in-laws could do magic, and so can their son?" Vernon asked.

Dumbledore nodded.

"And he killed a Dark Lord?"

He nodded again. To be fair, he was surprised. He had not expected the Dursleys to take the news this well, all things considered. Mrs. Dursley was still crying, and you could see Mr. Dursley was trying very hard not to fall asleep, or wake up from a dream. But there was no shouting, and he was glad for that. _Perhaps it's because they were never close, ever since Lily left for Hogwarts._

"And you want us to take their son and raise him?" Vernon interrupted his quiet musings. "Mr. Dumbledore, with all due respect, I must refuse. I have no idea how to raise a wizard, we have our hands full with our own Dudley and we do not have the means to support another child, thank you very much. For all they were our family, we barely knew them, and Harry would be completely isolated from his society if he stayed with us. I believe Petunia agrees as well."

He saw Mrs. Dursley nodding along, visibly torn. She probably wanted to take the child in, but knew that what her husband said was true. They could ill-afford to care for another toddler. Dumbledore sighed. He really felt bad for dumping all of it on the couple. Nobody deserved to hear news like this.

"Are you absolutely certain that you do not want to take in the child? I would personally see that all expenses on the child will be covered." Dumbledore tried.

"No, Mr. Dumbledore. As much as I would like to raise Lily's boy, what Vernon said is true. He should not be cut off from his world until he goes to Hogwarts. Don't you have someone you can leave him with, some wizard couple or something?"

That was the first time Petunia spoke. He sighed, again. They were right, he couldn't leave Harry here. Even with the protection and blood wards he planned for him, leaving him with someone who can apparate away in the face of danger made sense. He supposed he should have expected it. Lily always presented such wonderfully undisputable arguments, there was no reason for her sister to be different, even if she was a muggle. What was it he said? _They were normal people_, he thought, _and so is this couple_.

"Mr. Dumbledore, are you all right?" Vernon hesitantly asked.

"Yes, my apologies, it has been a long and turbulent night for me. I shall take my leave. I had planned to erect some protections against wizards, but as young Harry will not be staying here, I fear that putting up wards might attract unwanted attention. It would be safer for you to pretend like nothing happened." With that, he stood up and sighed. _Am I getting too old for this?_

* * *

It was some time later that found Albus in the Infirmary of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There was a sort of serenity about the place. With no students and in the dead of the night, the room was silent, other than the quiet breathing of two people.

_What to do… What to do… _he thought as he walked towards the transfigured crib. _It seems I will have to keep you with me for a while, Harry Potter. _He was surprised that he was actually looking forward to it. He could finally be someone's mysterious old wizard—… er… uncle. But he needed to find someone trustworthy, the boy could not be kept isolated from his peers. The Dursleys were right on that account. Who could he ask? Who could he trust? It broke his heart to weigh every action of every person he knew, but Black had taught him a bitter lesson that night. He wanted that man caught and put on trial. He needed to know why. _Why did you do it, Sirius?_

Dawn found Albus Dumbledore staring out at the grounds of Hogwarts, arms clasped behind his back and dark thoughts running through his mind. Only as he heard a cry from behind him did he wake up from his half-dreaming state and looked at the baby. _Brighter times are ahead of us, Harry Potter, brighter times indeed._

Albus Dumbledore smiled, then. A small, tired smile of a man who has seen too many battles, fought in too many wars and watched too many friends die. A smile of a man who has learned to appreciate the little joys in life, because sometimes those were the only ones there were. With that thought, he turned back to the window, swallowing a Lemon Drop and making a small bird from the wrapping paper that Harry watched with fascination. It did not do to dwell on the past and forget to live.


	2. Chapter 2: Wise Old Wizard

**Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ II — Wɪsᴇ Oʟᴅ Wɪᴢᴀʀᴅ**

"_The stars do not care about justice. That burden falls on our own mortal shoulders."_

—_Albus Dumbledore_

* * *

"Do you have everything packed, Daphne, Harry?" Harry could hear mum call from downstairs. He groaned as he looked around. _Yup, everything perfectly unpacked._ This was going to be _fun _trying to fit into the trunk, at least it had several compartments.

"No, mum, give me a few minutes," _or hours_, he yelled back. Back to packing. Socks, who invented socks? Those things were terrible to fold. He thought he packed them all, until he lifted a sweater and found a secret stash. Why had he refused Meep's help with packing, again? Right, he was one overly enthusiastic little bugger. Dumbledore would probably be disappointed in him. He did always say one can never have enough socks, and true to his word, every Christmas Harry got at least a pair.

An hour later found Harry dragging his trunk behind him as it thumped against the stairs. Not loud thumps, the trunk was charmed featherlight, but still.

_Thomp, thomp, thomp, thomp_.

At least he was not last. Stashing his trunk next to the fireplace, he ran outside.

"Hello Hedwig," he laughed as the owl flew down from the branch. She had been a gift from his parents, so that he could write them when he was in Hogwarts. They both knew that he would probably just go to Dumbledore's office and floo-call them, but he was now a 'proper young wizard' and so he needed an owl. And she _was _magnificent. A small bird with soft white feathers and was that bloody bird—

"Oh come on Hedwig, do you always need to make me sneeze?" he grumbled, wiping his hand on his trousers. The owl had a habit of sticking her wing under his nose until he sneezed when he didn't give her treats. _Spoiled little attention brat._ But he did pull out a small treat for her. He was, after all, the reason she was spoiled, so he couldn't really complain. "Do you want to fly to Hogwarts, girl?" He supposed the bob of her head was a yes. _Did she just nod? What is she, some kind of animagus?_ She hooted. _And a psychic too, great. Wise old wizard, check. Familiar, check. Magic staff… or wand, whatever, check. Why, I'm becoming a proper young wizard._

"Come, Harry, we need to be off if we don't want to be late," his mother called some time later. He scratched Hedwig, then braced his arm as he told the owl to take off. She was a beautiful owl.

* * *

The scenery blurred from gray to green and just like that, they were out of London. It was a little weird, sitting on a train to Hogwarts. He had spent a good part of his childhood in that castle, and it always took him just a few minutes to get there. But he had to admit, there was something nice about going by train. Dad told him that the reason why people didn't just floo to Hogwarts was the bonding experience. That was, apparently, reason enough to have a secret magical train _and _platform that only operated four times a year—the start of the year, Christmas, Easter and end of the year.

"What're you thinking about, Harry?" Daphne asked him. He realized he had been mostly silent since they got on the train. _How long has it been, anyway?_

"Not much, thinking which spells I want to try first when I get to the castle." he replied. She rolled her eyes.

"Leave it to you to be thinking about _spells_, you've barely let go of your wand since you got it in July." Now it was his turn to roll his eyes.

"What's wrong with spells?" he asked.

"Nothing, but if you keep thinking about them all the time, they'll lose their magic." she deadpanned.

There was silence, for maybe two seconds. Then they both burst into laughter. That was how Susan found them.

"Hey Suzie, how was Greece?" Harry asked with a smile as the girl joined them. They hadn't seen Susan for nearly two weeks—a long time if you're used to someone being with you nearly every day.

"Great, though I got a little sunburned," she replied.

"Uh-huh, wanted to match your hair?" he teased.

"Hey! Oh you—" she hissed at him, and then she hit him with a spell. "Now you match my hair," she said smugly.

"I deserve that, don't I?" he sighed, as he looked at the window, catching his reflection. "Now I'm destined to be the 'Gryffindor golden boy', even my hair is as red as their banner," he said, drawing quote marks in the air.

"One damn fine lion you are, Harry," Susan teased, making his ears go pink.

"Fur real, Harry, it suits you," Daphne added her two knuts' worth.

It was good to be together again. They spent the next few hours catching up on everything that had happened over the last few weeks, with Neville-have-you-seen-my-toad-Longbottom joining them after a while. Apparently, the poor boy lost his toad and went looking for it. Harry liked the boy, but did not know him very well. He generally only saw him attend parties with his grandmother; Dumbledore said she was too scared to let him out of the house much. _Poor boy_, Harry couldn't imagine what it would be like to grow up without many friends.

* * *

"Harry, I know you have some questions for me, questions I refused to answer when you were younger, as they were not the kind of thing you would want a child to hear," Dumbledore said seriously. They were sitting in Harry's room, surrounded by a veritable fortress of privacy spells. "But I think you are old enough to hear it now, although you will have to promise me to never tell anyone you do not trust completely. Is that clear?"

Harry just nodded.

"Is that clear Harry? I want you to promise me," Dumbledore asked again, staring into Harry's eyes.

"Yes, uncle," was Harry's reply, surprised. Dumbledore was rarely this serious when talking to Harry.

What followed was an explanation on what happened that night. Voldemort had tried to kill Harry because there was a prophecy—_a prophecy? about me?_ Dumbledore refused to tell the exact wording to Harry, and once he explained, Harry understood why.

Prophecies were fickle things, sometimes knowing them would make you act differently than you normally would. That might have been the reason why Voldemort died that night. The reason why Harry was alive, Dumbledore suspected, was that he didn't use his favorite spell on Harry himself, probably because he did not want to 'risk fate'. Harry really did not know why, since it was unblockable, unstoppable and killed the first living thing it touched without fail. But he looked glad that the Dark Lord _did_ make that mistake, promptly blowing himself up with whatever dark curse rebound from the protections on Harry. _Thank you for that, Lily_, he thought as he watched the boy wipe away the tears.

"And what about Neville? You said we were godbrothers, so why don't I see more of him?" Harry asked, breaking the silence that had weighed heavy in the room for nearly half an hour. The boy clearly had a lot to think about.

Dumbledore sighed. "The night Voldemort came for your parents, Harry, he also sent his most trusted servants to the Longbottoms' home. Neville was the other boy that the prophecy outlined as a possible enemy."

The shock was clear on the boy's face. _Neville? It could have been Neville?_

"Yes, Harry, as I already told you, prophecies are vague and fickle matters, and this one fit two people—you and young Neville Longbottom. The LeStranges enjoyed the night way more than their Dark Lord… Harry, how do I say this…" He really wanted to spare the boy the force of the blow, but he just could not see the way. So he soldiered on. "They tortured Neville's parents. They are in a permanent ward in St. Mungo's, and will never be able to think again. The only reason they, and Neville, are not dead is that Voldemort failed that night, and I notified the Aurors in time. That is why Lady Regent Longbottom is so scared to let Neville out of her sight. The night broke her, Harry."

It was some time later that Dumbledore stood up. He felt bad for telling the child these things, but it was better this way. He did not want to keep secrets from Harry; did not want to manipulate him. He was forced to grow up too fast. _At least he now has a family._

The Greengrasses were never a part of the Order, but Dumbledore knew them well. They kept them supplied with potions throughout the war. It was only after Dumbledore started thinking about where he could place Harry more seriously, and asked Remus, that he found out just how close they were to the Potters, and by extension, the Marauders. _Apparently it was a close call between Alice and Roxanne for godmother. Who would have thought?_ He was glad for them. He still remembered Roxanne's face the night Harry called her 'mum' for the first time. He was four at the time. _That _was a decidedly delightful evening, he even got his first socks from Harry in retaliation. They occupied a place of honour in his office. _Way better than three red slippers for red feet. Way more versatile, too. Good luck using slippers as gloves the next time you go baking._

* * *

"My father told me about you Weasleys," Draco Malfoy sneers with as much dignity as he can manage. _Probably trying to sound like his father_. "Red hair, doesn't know the first thing about manners." _He would be more intimidating if he was not sprawled on the floor. Dust-eater._

Taking a good look at the boy, Draco raised an eyebrow, "Your robes are nicer than I thought, Did your father finally manage to stop playing with muggles and do something useful for a change?"

_Oh this was going to be so good, thanks Suzie._

"Hello, cousin," he said as he stuck out his hand, "fancy running into you here. So sorry for that, but you _were_ kinda standing in the doorway."

_Oh that face is priceless_. Draco Malfoy was gaping like a fish. He honestly hadn't meant to hit the boy when he opened the restroom door, it just sort of… happened. He got scared by a toad. _Daphne's never going to let me forget this one, is she_.

"Cousin?" was all Malfoy could manage to say, still too shocked to reply.

"You are Draco Malfoy, are you not?" Harry asked, feigning uncertainty. _Of course he is Draco Malfoy, there are only so many boys with hair like that Earth can manage. I think the number oscillates around two._

That seemed to make him a little calmer. "I am happy to hear that you recognize me. Father says fame is inherited, though, so I should not be surprised." The boy brushed off some not-so-imaginary lint from his robes. He was sprawled on the floor just moments ago, after all. "But what is this nonsense about cousins, Weasley?" _Ah. There is the sneer. Book of sneers, chapter seven, example two?_

"Harry Potter, pleased to meet you, I hope we can become friends in time and put this unfortunate incident behind us. We are, after all, family. Right, Draco?" Harry said, raising his extended hand a little higher.

If seeing shock on the faces of your enemies always felt this good, Harry could understand why Sirius enjoyed being an Auror.

* * *

The room was anchored in space, more certain than the turning of the world. The only other artifact that existed which had the same _presence_ as this room was the Mirror of Atlantis. One had the distinct feeling that if _Fiendfyre _met the walls, the fyre would be no more. Not that anyone would try, of course. They were all terribly civilised people. The walls, floor and ceiling are from a non-descript gray stone. If you looked at them for long enough, and were the kind of person who notices the hidden turnings of the world, you could occasionally see it flow. Albus was never quite sure if it was real or if he just imagined it. The space is lit with a sourceless, smokeless light, neither warm, nor cold. _It_ does not pass judgement. That is the role of the people.

This was the Ancient Hall of the Wizengamot, within which sit the members of the executive, legislative, and judicial body of the country of Magical Britain; on rows of benches with cushioned seats, curving around two thirds of the room, rising in tiers. The system was all charmingly simple, compared to what muggle Britain had, really. Seats, some of them hereditary since the time of Merlin, some voted; just right for it to be balanced; just right for it to be fair. There was beauty in simplicity.

They were all facing towards the empty chair, silently screaming threats at them. _Anyone could be sitting here_ it seemed to shout. Behind it stood Dumbledore, in his place as the overseer of the Wizengamot, wearily listening. It had been a hard few weeks.

"This is the seventy-second judicial hearing of the year 1981. Let the Wizengamot convene. Accused: Sirius Black. Crime: cooperation with the Dark Lord You-Know-Who, betrayal of the Potters' location to the Dark Lord, causing the deaths of James and Lily Potter on the night of the 31st of October, 1981 … " Dumbledore listened from his podium, facing the crescents of chairs filled with the plum coloured robes of the Wizengamot. Usually, he would catch the eye of an acquaintance or an enemy, Albus Dumbledore knew every single person at least by name and political agenda. He was the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, it was his job. Not today, though. Today, he stared numbly at the metal chair in the middle of the main hall of the Wizengamot, too weary to keep up appearances.

Normally, trials were held in the courtrooms, but after the fall of Voldemort, all Death Eaters caught were to be tried before the full assembly, which did not fit into the smaller courtrooms. Those were used for settling bureaucratic disputes and small thieveries, not treason and cooperation in the systematic terrorist assault on the country and government of Magical Britain.

"... bring in the accused." the cold voice of Bartemius Crouch said. Dumbledore had been right, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had wanted to send Sirius Black straight to Azkaban, saying that he would not let one of the You-Know-Who's most trusted servants escape just because he wanted to get some answers. It was sometimes handy to be the Chief Warlock, he thought with a wry smile, even though most of the time it was just a waste of time.

Albus sometimes composed poetry while standing in the courtroom, half-listening to the esteemed members of the Wizengamot argue about regulations on glow-worms or whatever. The problem was not that they were harmless creatures and relatively easy to dispose of. The problem was that they spent _hours _talking about it last year, even with the war going on.

_I am Albus, little fish,_

_come and catch me if you wish._

_You must first—_

_Oops._ Somehow, only the cold presence of the Dementor threw him out of his reverie. Those things really should not be brought into the courtrooms. But Barty Crouch insisted.

The man looked terrible, with gaunt eyes and disheveled gray prison rags. For a moment, a small part of Albus felt pity for the man before another one ruthlessly pushed down the emotion. _No._ The man betrayed his friends. He does not deserve pity. _Oh Sirius, of all the people, I never thought you'd turn your back on James… I would expect a divorce sooner than this… _The magical chains wrapped around the man's limbs, looking like black snakes slithering around a victim, ready to choke and bite. Then the Veritaserum. _One. Two. Three. Good._

"Are you Sirius Black?" Amelia Bones started. _The girl rose fast, just a decade ago she was fighting in the Auror corps, and now she's chief interrogator. _

"Yes," came the monotone reply.

"Born?"

"Third of November, 1959."

This back-and-forth continued, establishing that yes, the serum worked; yes, that man was indeed Sirius Black and no—

"Can you repeat that?" Amelia asked amidst the silence.

"I have not betrayed the Potters to Voldemort. I do not serve Voldemort."

Relief flooded Albus. Deep inside, he always hoped, that little part of him that felt pity for the boy. Second came horror and confusion, hand in hand—with the man they thought responsible being free of that crime, then who… _The reason why Harry's parents are dead is still on the run, God-knows-where_. _Oh Merlin_.

"... I wanted to kill that fucker." _Veritaserum makes you say the truth, not politically correct statements, my dear. _He said that to Amelia, she was visibly shaken after the testimony of one Bellatrix Black. "I wanted to kill him for what he did to James and Lily." Sirius Black said. It unnerved even Albus, coming out in that dull monotone.

"Everyone involved with the case believes you to be the Secret Keeper of the Potters' Fidelius. Can you explain what happened?"

"I was the obvious target. Me and Pettigrew decided to switch, nobody except the Potters and us knew. I thought it would be better that way, that little Harry would be safe. And then he betrayed them. He betrayed them to Voldemort. They're dead. All of them." It chilled Albus to the bone, hearing those words, in that dull tone. _They're all dead— _

It hit like a damn breaking. _Sirius doesn't know. I took Harry straight to the Infirmary from the house… Sirius got captured before he could be told… Damnit, Albus, why didn't you think of this before— _

"Mister Black," Dumbledore spoke up before another question could be asked. He could not let this be.

The room fell silent. Amelia glared at him for breaking the procedure. He did not care. "Mister Black, young Harry is alive. He survived the attack." He did not, could not, say more in public. This was the first real information anybody had on the Potters. He had only told the Wizengamot that the Dark Lord was dead after the attack on the Potters' home. But he needed to tell Sirius at least this much.

There was no response. No emotion. Sirius Black was asked no question, so he did not respond. Veritaserum was not the only reason for an orderly trial. The chair restrained the person within. Not just physically, either—there were compulsions layered on it, preventing anyone sitting within to respond unless asked a question. Of course, it would be a disaster if someone went to Azkaban just because the interrogator neglected to ask a deciding question. It happened—back in the sixteenth century, just after the Wizengamot was founded. Since then, the law said that the interrogator must ask—

"What more do you know about Pettigrew? Please withdraw any sensitive information that may help us catch the man and is not relevant to the trial at hand. There are interested parties here."

_Good move, Amelia, _Dumbledore thought as he looked at Lucius Malfoy. The man was glaring daggers into the back of Amelia's head, for all the good it did him.

"I went to visit them in the morning, but I only found a collapsed house. Knew it was Pettigrew, he was the Secret Keeper, the only weak point. I wanted to tear strips of skin from that bastard, hear him scream. I wanted him to _hurt_ for what he did. I hunted him down, but he tricked me. I had not slept for days before our confrontation… He escaped."

There were several people crying in the hall. Albus Dumbledore was not one of them. He was steeling himself for a game of cat-and-mouse. He knew Pettigrew was an animagus. The whole Order knew, it was a tactical advantage, one they used in the last war to spy on Voldemort. _At least, we thought he was sneaking around… Nobody suspected… Not even Severus._

* * *

The train came to a stop, its breaks screeching murder to all eardrums nearby. Children started pouring from the doors, heading for the carriages. Harry was glad he already knew where to go, he could well imagine the confusion at being here for the first time, not knowing what to do. _They should have the prefects run the train and tell the first years… Hey, that's a good idea, I'll tell that to Gandalf._

He had started calling Dumbledore that after he gave him _The Lord of the Rings_ as a gift. Harry was surprised it was muggle literature, the book had an uncanny ability to describe some creatures, like the goblins. When he had asked how Dumbledore knew muggle literature, since he never showed interest before, he chuckled and said, "Oh Harry, you would be surprised how alike my muggle students think in certain ways. Over the years, I have accumulated no fewer than twenty copies of Tolkien's books. I have a whole shelf in my personal library dedicated to them." The next time he saw Dumbledore, he spun out of the floo, jammed a tree branch into the carpet and bellowed _You shall not pass!_ It was quite dramatic, even if the effect was ruined by the utter lack of a Balrog. Or a gaping chasm.

"Firs' yees! To me firs' yees!" came the booming voice of Hagrid. Harry trailed the girls as they went to join the growing cluster of probably-first-years, nodding as he saw a few familiar faces. After a while, with Hagrid muttering numbers under his breath, he nodded, satisfied. They moved towards the lake.

He could see Neville get on a boat a brown-haired girl and a freckled boy. _At least he is making friends now_, he thought. They seemed to be having fun. Then the boats came out of the bay they were anchored in and Harry heard a gasp from behind. He could see why.

The castle of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, his new home for the next seven years, towered over the lake, casting faint reflections from the lit windows, making the water gleam a soft yellow. _Yes_, he thought, _I can get used to a view like this_.

Harry always thought the lake was cool, they had their own Lochness monster, after all, and it was _real_! How cool was that? But looking like this, the lake reached new heights. Even ghosts will have trouble competing with this level of awesome. He idly wondered how it would feel like to fly above the lake.


	3. Chapter 3: Oh Cool, a Hat

**Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ III — Oʜ Cᴏᴏʟ, ᴀ Hᴀᴛ!**

"_Doing a thing wrong is a mistake. Doing a thing without thought is folly."_

—_Godric Gryffindor_

* * *

"Is that a ghost?" he heard someone ask in a shaky voice.

"Yes."

"Oh cool… What?"

* * *

They were waiting for Professor McGonagall in a side chamber next to the entrance hall. Some people were nervous, some were trying to hide their nervousness, and some were visibly shaken. Someone should really warn kids that there are _ghosts_ in Hogwarts. Harry suppressed a sigh as he tried to tune out whats-her-name that was explaining something about ghosts and Hogwarts: A History. _Kindred spirit, that. Teacher material._

"If you will, please follow me," McGonagall's crisp voice cut through the general un-noise of the room.

The Great Hall was great. _Hah_. Most of the kids around him were craning their heads back, admiring the enchanted ceiling, with its great swath of stars shining amidst the cloudless sky. Harry was more aware of all the people who were staring at _them_. _Wait, is my hair still red? _He saw Dumbledore looking at him and winked back. The man smiled a little wider, _oh, good, _continuing to look at the first years as if he was delighted to see every one of them. _He was, that was the thing. How did he do it?_

As they were walking forward, the hat was singing some so… n… g— _The Hat was singing a song. What? The Hat could speak? Why'd no-one ever told him that?_

"Silence, please," and silence followed. McGonagall looked vaguely surprised, but satisfied at the result, before continuing. "When I call your name, you will step forward, sit on the stool, place the Hat on your head and wait for it to sort you. Is that clear?"

"Yes, professor," came about twenty voices.

"I told you, Dean, we will not be fighting a troll or anything, that's ridiculous! There's _no way_ they would let such a dangerous creature within the castle, let alone let us fight it." whispered somebody else, Harry didn't catch who. He privately thought it was less risky to fight a troll than to whisper when McGonagall was speaking.

"Abbot, Hannah," read McGonagall.

Pause.

"Hufflepuff!" _Yes, the Hat definitely spoke. And this was a shock… why exactly? Wasn't he a wizard or something?_

Susan went to Hufflepuff as well, apparently. Harry didn't hear, he was still a bit distracted by _a speaking hat, hello?_ but the clapping pulled his thoughts back to the present. He recovered quickly enough to join the applause just as Susan reached the foot of the stairs. _Way to go, Harry._ She sat at the table filled with yellow-and-black robes and waved at them. He smiled back.

The sorting continued, each person getting sorted by _a speaking magical hat_. Harry was still having trouble processing that.

As 'Finnigan, Seamus' was called, he squeezed Daphne's hand. They were both nervous, they wanted to be in the same house, after all. _Can you somehow bamboozle a magical artifact that speaks and is also a hat?_ He sure hoped he could. Daphne gave him a small smile, squeezed his hand back and was called after a 'Gryffindor!'

"Ravenclaw!" _That's… good? Sure, why not. It's not like houses matter anyway. Glorified decreasing of class size. _He liked Flitwick, though, so he wasn't complaining. Slytherin would have been nice too, but probably too chilly. _The hat sure looks good on her, though_.

More people were sorted. And yet more. Harry chanced to look at the head table. Dumbledore was still smiling, clapping every time someone was sorted. On his left was an empty chair, on his right Snape. The man was looking at him, no, staring at him. _Is he hoping I'll go to Slytherin?_ Next to Snape was Professor… Qui-something, he forgot. He was new. _Fancy turban. Gandalf would approve, he likes purple_. And then there was Hagrid and a man he did not recognize. On the other side, next to what was probably McGonagall's seat was Flitwich, Sprout, Sinistra, Babbling and—

"Potter, Harry."

_Please tell me that is the first time she said that?_ The whole hall was staring at him, and there was shocked silence, not annoyance. _So it's first time, alright_. Apparently, the words 'Potter' and 'silence' had the same effect on the crowd when spoken by the professor. These were his thoughts as he walked forward and placed the worn-looking artifact on his head. _Knock knock?_

* * *

_Who's there?_

_Are you playing along? Am I doing knock-knock jokes with a thousand-year-old magical— _

_Yes, and we should stop, although it would have been fun. It has been ages since someone told me a joke._

_But you're a hat._

_Noooo, I'm actually a hippogriff pretending to be an elephant pretending to be a hat._

_That's one mad hatter_, Harry thought before he could stop himself.

Harry got the distinct impression of someone laughing _inside his own mind_. _How— _

_That was a good one. _

_Yes, well, I'm positively brimming with hat jokes. _

_That's great and all, and now there are also people who are looking at you. You're smiling and looking silly._

_Oh… um, can we like, chat for a while so it looks like I'm having some serious discussion and this was just me gleefully rubbing my hands?_

_What will you give me in return?_

_I'll ask Gandalf not to burn you?_

* * *

The silence stretched. When Harry started smiling, some whispers broke out. They died down as the silence still stretched. People were looking at people. People were smirking at people. Dumbledore went on smiling at people.

* * *

_So, you were originally Godric Gryffindor's hat and he made you because… he got lonely on his travels and wanted someone to talk to?_

_Yes._

_I wonder how one goes from that to sorting children every year._

_Oh, well, when he died I made a deal with Rowena that I would sort children into houses, and in return they would keep renewing the enchantments and repairing me. I don't fancy dying, you know. Godric was such a moron, he made me from an ordinary hat. No foresight, no, no, no, he just took his hat and spent a month making me. That's what you get when you do and neglect to think. Though he did grow out of it, well before becoming one of the Founders. Most people do._

_Damn. So how were kids sorted before you?_

_There weren't houses. I made it up. Rowena liked it. End of story._

_Does anyone know?_

_Possible, I don't know. I can't remember the exact details of any child's sorting. Too easy to pass off as mind-reading otherwise. But I can't remember ever telling anybody outside the sorting, and there are precious few children that have a nice conversation with me. Usually the long talks are some kid that's Dark Lord material, and me trying to convince him that no, Slytherin is not a good option for them._

_Am I Dark Lord material?_

_Yes, actually, but don't worry. You have a mysterious old wizard, he'll take care of you. Although please do ensure you're working on that too, good? Dark Lord Harry prevention programme or something? _

_Will do. And by the mysterious old wizard, you mean Gandalf?_

_Yes, who else? Frankly, nobody else is quite cool enough to do a good job of it. Even with that ruddy bird._

_What's wrong with Fawkes?_

_Magical hats and magical fire work together about as well as normal hats and normal fire._

_Oh._

_So, how did that whole Gandalf thing come to be?_

_How do you know who Gandalf is but not why I call him that? Can't you just pull out the memory or something?_

_I see your thoughts as they form. I know who Gandalf is because I can see you're thinking of Dumbledore. I can't read your memories. I'm not omnipotent, I'm just psychic. I wish I was, though. Nice little shortcut to Godhood, that._

_Shame._

_Yeah._

* * *

Something was deeply wrong with Harry Potter. Nobody in living memory spent this long under the hat. Even the most indecisive students were under there for maybe a minute. Even the Dark Lord had not spent this long under the brown, squat headpiece. Just _what_ was going on?

* * *

_Oh Harry, please tell me you didn't confuse the hat into insanity, pretty pretty please?_ thought Daphne. Admittedly, it would have been funny. It was certainly fun to watch everyone stare at her friend as if he was the next Dark Lord or something.

* * *

_Hold on, serious question. How do I know I'm not just imagining all this? I mean, it's all happening in my head, and— _

_You don't._

_Oh._

_Yeah…_

_So am I just hallucinating?_

_No._

_How do you know— oh._

_Quite._

…

_So, what now?_

_Should we get to the sorting?_

_It was your idea to have this chat in the first place, and frankly, I am very much enjoying this conversation. It feels… unique. It's also given me some nice time to recover, my cloth was starting to get sore from all the shouting._

_Right, um, you're welcome? But I think we should get to it, I can come and chat some other time?_

Did the hat just crack his… knuckles? What? _But it's just a piece of…_

_Don't think about it._

_Okay, Mr. Hat. Oh, by the way, what is your name?_

_I don't have a name. Really, boy, do you ever stop and think? Everyone calls me The Sorting Hat, and if you're thinking to me, you are only thinking to me, you don't need to call out. And anyway, what would my name be? John? Do you know how many Johns there are in the world?_

_The Sorting Hat is called The Sorting Hat. Got it._

* * *

"Ravenclaw!"

Harry Potter was a little scared. And thinking all the thoughts about how the Hat was going to prank him and go 'Slytherin! Just kidding, Ravenclaw!" or 'Ravendor' or something. He had been desperately trying _not _to think about it while still wearing the hat and… oh…

_I'm still here, you know?_

_Right._

"But I really ought to put you in Slytherin," the Hat spoke into the silence. Harry thought he saw someone faint.

_Goodbye?_

_Bye, Harry, and do come talk to me sometimes. It gets lonely being a Hat._

_Sure thing._

And he took the Hat off. The room was still silent. Harry looked back at Gandalf, who only smiled back. He wasn't in trouble, then. That was good. As he was walking down the stairs, he felt a bit chagrined as he remembered that anyone who's surname started with P or later was left standing all this while and _What the flying flubbergast was that anyway_. Dumbledore started clapping, and that set off the rest of the hall. Harry even saw some Slytherins clapping. He ought to have been put to Slytherin, after all. Probably assumed he was seven shades of cunning for tricking the Hat into putting him to Ravenclaw.

_Well, if I am going to be famous, I might as well be interesting while I'm at it_.

* * *

"Harry, just _what_ did you do to the poor hat?" Daphne whispered into his ear as he sat down.

"Oh nothing, we just had a little private chat," Harry replied.

"You call that a little chat? You were there for nearly half an hour! And who, what—… You were chatting with the Sorting Hat? You just had a conversation with a thousand-year-old artifact about what exactly?" she asked.

"Life, the Universe and everything. Now hush, those poor kids still need to be sorted." Harry was trying really hard not to smile. _Wait. A thousand-year-old artifact that sat on the head of at least two Founders and who knew who else. It certainly was afraid of death, but I wonder… Can I use it… Hmm. I really need to talk to it again._

Daphne shook her head in amusement.

Eventually, 'Zabini, Blaise' got sorted into Slytherin and dinner began. Harry was thinking about everything the Hat told him, reaching for dessert on autopilot until Daphne poked him in the ribs.

"That your dinner?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

_Um. Oops._ "Was kinda distracted, went for tasty," Harry replied. "Might as well eat it when I have it on the plate?" he tried, eyeing the muffins. So Daphne promptly stole one, apparently to 'share the burden and let him eat some real food'. Real friendship, that. _If you begin with dessert, you're effectively travelling back in time. In… intentions? _Intention-travelling sounded like fun. It also tasted a whole lot like chocolate.

He was just about to take the fourth bite of his dinner when one of the older-looking Ravenclaws leaned over the table and asked him what he had talked about with the hat, missing the whole point of your sorting being private business where your thoughts got picked apart by a mind-reading piece of cloth to determine your major behavioural trends at the age of eleven and all that.

"What did you talk about with the Hat?" Harry retorted.

"Um, I'd rather not tell, it's kinda private," replied the boy, suddenly wary.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Really," he drawled, voice dripping with sarcasm. And went back to eating. He heard someone whisper that spending a long time under the Hat only happened to Dark Lords, and when he turned the girl gave a little squeak and looked away. _Huh?_ _What was that all about?_

He tried to ignore the speculations around him as looked back on his plate to find something that looked like blue broccoli. "Daphne? Did you… Nevermind." It tasted surprisingly good. On that note, he went looking for some meat. He was a growing boy, after all.

* * *

"Hello, hello, welcome to another year at Hogwarts," Albus spoke as he smiled at the crowd of gathered students, arms stretched out and a beaming smile on his face. "There are a few quick announcements I fear I need to bore you with before you go pretend to sleep. As we all know, some students take rules more as advisory recommendations, rather than actual guidelines," he specifically looked at the Weasley twins. They were famous enough that even Harry knew who they were "but rules were made to ensure your safety, so please do try to follow them. If you do not, then at least pretend you are, and make sure nothing happens to you. I am sure the faculty members of Hogwarts will be very generous handing out punishments if they _do_ find you breaking some rule."

Harry heard several someones say 'What?' at that point.

"Firstly, the Forbidden Forest is forbidden to all students, and that is precisely why it is called the Forbidden Forest. If you need to go there, please talk to one of your teachers. The point is to ensure you are safe, not that you are oppressed."

"Secondly, if you cared enough to look, you would find the updated list of forbidden items on Mr Filch's office door. I believe there are some four new items added this year."

"And at last, I would like to introduce Quirinus Quirrell, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. If his skill in teaching is on par with his skill of choosing a wardrobe, I dare say your next year will be a breeze." Apparently, Dumbledore really _did_ like that purple turban. Should Harry start wearing one too? "Please, a round of applause for your new professor."

Professor Quirrel stood up, walking towards the lantern with a small limp. He looked at the students, arms grasping the sides of the lectern and nodding slightly before he started speaking. "Good evening everyone, my name is Quirinus Quirrell. As Headmaster Dumbledore already said, beginning this year, I will be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. There is but one thing I wish to make clear for everyone. If you come to my class, I expect you to be paying attention and applying yourselves. If you are planning to talk during class, you may not come at all. I would attempt to make some dreadfully blood-chilling threats, but in all honesty, I do not particularly care. You will not be punished for skipping my classes. My concern with you and your success goes only as far as your own. Work hard, and you will be rewarded. Slack off, and you are on your own. Thank you."

The applause started immediately after he finished speaking.

_Damn, when Gandalf said he hired a professional monster hunter and hit-wizard, I really did not know what to expect. Quirrell, plus one point._

Professor Quirrel bowed and turned to walk away, yielding the lectern to Dumbledore. "I believe that is everything for today, I wish you all a pleasant night."

* * *

"Mr Potter," said the squeaky voice of Professor Flitwick just as Harry was leaving the Great Hall, "Headmaster Dumbledore wishes to meet with you in his office, right now. I trust you know the way?"

"Yes, professor," Harry replied and Flitwick turned to go with a nod.

"You're not in trouble, Harry, are you?" asked Susan. "I leave you unsupervised for _five minutes_ and you get called before the Headmaster. Woe is me," she sighed dramatically.

Harry just shook his head. "What if he just wants to chat? It has been a week since we last saw each other," he asked, amused.

"Yeah, right. Well, I will leave you to it. Good night?" and with Harry and Daphne saying their goodbyes, Susan turned to go.

"Should I wait for you?" Daphne asked as they waited on a turning staircase, just before their paths split.

"Dunno how long it's going to take, go sleep," Harry replied, and hugged Daphne.

"Tell him I said hi, alright?"

"Sure thing, Daph. Sleep well."

"You too."

* * *

He knocked on the door to Dumbledore's office. _Was he here before him? He did go here straight from the Great Hall_. The door opened, revealing the knick-knack storage room, also known as the office of the Headmaster of Hogwarts. _How?_

"Floo from the antechamber, Harry. Come, now, don't look so surprised. I know you well enough to guess what you're thinking, give me some credit, Harry. Chocolate?"

Dumbledore usually offered Lemon Drops, they were his favorite. Harry used to take them out of politeness, before gathering up all his five-year-old courage and telling the most powerful man alive that he did not, in fact, like the sour treat all that much. It was a little scary, even if the man was practically his grandfather. Thankfully, he understood, and now offered him chocolate instead. _Old habits die hard, I suppose. _

"Thanks, Gandalf, I'll pass tonight. Had one too many muffins during dinner," Harry replied with a small smile. Dumbledore smiled back.

"Should I go get my staff, Harry?"

"You're still missing a clueless hobbit, you know that?"

"It is not well you forget you are in the room, Harry," Dumbledore replied with a wry smile.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you're making fun of me," Harry replied with a raised eyebrow.

"But I am, my boy." _Damn, I did miss him._

"Hello, Gandalf, it's nice to see you again," Harry smiled and went over to hug the man. "Oh, Daphne said hi. Now tell me, why is it you've called me here?"

"Right, straight to the point. Perhaps it's for the best, there is quite a lot that needs saying. Harry, there is an art called Legilimency, it grants a practiced caster some access to your mind, emotions and memories; for their viewing or manipulation, if they wish."

Harry gaped. _People could read minds? _

"Is there any way that I can protect myself?" Harry asked, really, _really _hoping there were. There were things he really did not want people knowing. And he hadn't even really thought about the implications for ten seconds—

"Yes, you do see the problem. Good. There are. As the old saying goes, 'What magic can do, magic can undo.' Its counterpart is called Occlumency. It is the art of controlling one's own mind. You can never really block someone from accessing your mind, nor can you expel them by the sheer force of magic. But you can learn to detect when someone is watching, make blank memories; control your emotions. You cannot deny access to your mind, but you _can_ deny access to your thoughts and feelings by showing them what you wish," Dumbledore explained.

"So I can learn to show what I wish? Gandalf, is the counter to mind-reading _pretending to be someone else_?" came the incredulous question.

Dumbledore chuckled. "Quite close, Harry, but sadly, reality is never that simple. If you pretend to be someone else and make it too obvious, the person knows you know Occlumency. And if they are powerful enough, they will keep pushing until you break. Occlumency is a subtle art. You need to fabricate who you are, yet still convince the intruder they are seeing the truth."

"I want to learn it," said Harry, resolute. If there was a way for people to read his thoughts, he wanted to protect himself from it. It did not sound as if Occlumency relied on magic, so why not? _And if I can learn it…_ "and so should Daphne and Susan. Gandalf, can I tell them too? I don't want me to be the exception because of some prophecy, they deserve to have privacy too!"

"Quite right, Harry, I thought you would say something like that. Of course, you are completely and utterly right, my hands are bound and my mouth is gaping. Tomorrow at six?" Dumbledore asked.

"Wait, you can teach us Occlumency?"

"Yes. Of course, I could also find some tutor, but I thought you'd prefer to take lessons with me. You cannot learn Occlumency without being under an attack of a Legilimens, and that means having someone access your mind. Are you all right with that?"

"Better than having a stranger do it, yeah, I'm all right with that. I think the girls would be too. Just out of curiosity, though, what's the standard procedure?" Harry was curious. After he got over the initial shock that it wasn't just hats that could read your mind, he realized that this whole thing was _fascinating_.

"Unbreakable vows of secrecy and an obliviation after you finish. Or after every session, if you want to be extra careful. However, you can imagine how costly that is."

Harry whistled appreciatively. "Yeah, right, might as well get a throne made of gold while we're at it."

"Quite," came the smiling affirmation.

"Tomorrow at six it is. Anything else?" Harry was already looking forward to it.

"There is one more thing, or two, really. I did not give these items to you before, as they would be of little use other than giving your mother a heart attack before Hogwarts. But now that you are here, I will sleep better knowing you have them."

_Cool, am I getting a quest item or something?_

Dumbledore went behind his desk and waved his wand. _Yup, definitely getting a quest item._ That was Dumbledore's secret safe, located right under the school's banner and hidden behind a fidelius, as well as several wards. He pulled out a bundle of shimmering cloth with a piece of parchment on top.

"These two things are rightly yours, Harry. They are yours by heritage, and I only kept them until now for safekeeping. I hope you will use them to keep yourself safe. I do not, however, forbid you from using it to do mischief. You know my personal policy, right?"

"Don't get caught, and don't get hurt," Harry recited with a smile. It was refreshing to talk with an adult who was both responsible _and _had an actual sense of humour. Harry liked that about Dumbledore, he allowed, even encouraged harmless fun, but drew a firm line when pranks turned to bullying or fooling around became dangerous. _Why aren't all adults like him? The world would be such a lively place if they were_. _Probably saturated with Lemon Drops, too, but that's besides the point. _

"This, Harry, is a map of the castle," he shared, almost conspiratorially.

"But, it's just a blank parchment," Harry protested.

Dumbledore smiled his mysterious smile and went on to explain what the Marauder's Map was, how to use it and who made it. Harry's eyes got progressively wider as he spoke, before brimming with tears.

"Thank you, I… Thank you," Harry managed to choke out.

Dumbledore stood, then, placing a hand on Harry's shoulder. He waited for the boy to compose himself before he continued. "And this, Harry, is your father's invisibility cloak."

"Um, Gandalf? You know McGonagall is going to kill you when she finds out what you just did, right?" Harry asked, hesitantly.

"Oh yes, Minerva will be _very _disappointed," he winked at Harry, "but you _are_ Harry Potter, and that is reason enough." His smile stretched wider. "Do not worry about it, she will understand."

When Harry left the Headmaster's office some time later, cloaked and armed with a map, his head was spinning from everything Dumbledore had told him. The cloak was not just _a_ cloak of invisibility, but _the _Cloak of Invisibility, handed down from Peverell to Peverell, until they changed their name, and until, one day, it was handed to Harry. _The cloak which hides its wearer from Death itself_. That sounded both ominous and downright cool. Harry was starting to really like Hogwarts.

It was so overwhelming, in fact, that he had forgotten about the whole incident with the Sorting Hat. Only after Dumbledore asked him about it did he remember. Like, yeah, it was a telepathic piece of clothing. But Harry could be invisible, know every passageway in Hogwarts _and _become a professional mind-mage. But he did tell him the gist of what they talked about, the interesting parts anyway. Dumbledore seemed to find it very funny, and even agreed to let Harry borrow the Hat again. 'For catching up on things'. _Wasn't magic wonderful?_

* * *

Dumbledore sighed, walking to the window as he thought. He felt like he wasn't doing enough. He promised himself he'd protect the boy, and yet he wanted to give him the childhood he deserved. He sometimes forgot Harry was only eleven; the boy could be remarkably mature. But then, when he was with his friends, he acted just like the others. It warmed Dumbledore's heart to see him like that. To see that he is happy, that he had not broken the boy with what he told him.

It was true that Minerva was going to have a fit when she found out. But Dumbledore was more worried than he let on. When Quirinus came for his interview, he claimed to have had a run-in with the Dark Lord's spirit. Of course, the moment he said that, Dumbledore stunned and scanned the man, then called for Snape to bring in some Veritaserum. Quirinus had taken it all in stride; he understood why Dumbledore had done it, even going as far as to applaud Dumbledore for his quick thinking, saying he would have done the same. He was relieved he had not lost his Defense Against the Dark Arts professor before his first day of classes. The man showed potential.

And yet, he was unsettled. They never found Voldemort's body, and even though he suspected, there was never any real proof that the Dark Lord survived that night. And then he found someone claiming to have seen his spirit; someone who repeated the same even under the influence of the truth serum.

He had originally planned to give Harry the Cloak for Christmas, and withhold the Map for another few years at least, but they did give young Harry some safety, and he could already see the moment in the future, regretting not giving him the items sooner, right after some very preventable disaster. _Not on my watch_.

The only thing that Dumbledore did not give the boy was a time-turner. _Yet._ As much as he wanted to, he resolved to only give it to him when the threat in the castle became imminent. He did not fancy playing havoc with the boy's sleeping schedule at the age of eleven if he did not have to.

With that thought, he cast sealing charms on his office and sealed the floo. There was no reason to wreak destruction on his own sleep either, if he didn't need to. With an afterthought, he flicked his hand and the fires puffed out, leaving only the small torch next to Fawkes' perch. As he left the room, he started humming a tune from who-knew-where.

_I am Albus, little fish._

_come and catch me if you wish._

_You must first be very swift,_

_catch me as I float adrift._

_You must also give me food,_

_not to do so would be rude._

_Lastly you must talk to me,_

_we're in polite company!_


	4. Chapter 4: Precedence

**A/N: **Reviews are the key to my heart, they give me all sorts of warm and fuzzy. More, please.

In all seriousness, it's reviews that make this story a more enjoyable ride for all of us. I don't have to guess at what you want and like to read, and you can express what you like or dislike about the story. All feedback, thoughts and predictions for the future are welcome with open arms; praise doubly so. I am only human, after all.

Thank you for your reviews, hearts and follows. Onwards with the story!

* * *

**Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ IV — Pʀᴇᴄᴇᴅᴇɴᴄᴇ**

_"Time-travel cannot become ugly, for it has already happened. Alas, it has no such qualms with being confusing."_

_—Albus Dumbledore_

* * *

He was jolted from his sleep by a sudden flickering _shift_, disrupting his dreamless sleep with a vision of a house. He looked around his bedchamber, confused, wand already drawn. He knew something was wrong, but he could not place his finger on what exactly it was. _Was it just a bad dream?_

Normally, he would fall back to sleep, thinking nothing of waking up in the dead of the night. But this was different. A part of his mind felt disarrayed. It felt like mind magic. _Mind magic… _And then a dreadful thought occurred to him. _Oh no. Please no, no, no, no_, Albus thought with rising panic. _Surely not._

Bolting from his bed, he flicked his wand towards his wardrobe even as he vanished his nightgown. A purple robe wrapped around him just as he strode into his office, conjured boots wrapping around his feet and summoned glasses zooming from the nightstand. He reached for his necklace and was just about to flick it when his hand suddenly halted.

A small parchment floated towards the floor where Fawkes had dropped it a fraction of a second before, appearing in a ball of flame. He recognised his own loopy handwriting on it. _You already know what happened._

He swore in his mind, then. He did. Sometimes he hated his brain for working so quickly. _Rule one of time travel: if you don't know the end, you can still change it._ But he already knew what happened. He knew it since the moment he thought of the possibility.

_You cannot undo time._

With a resigned sigh, he picked up a small scrap of parchment that looked remarkably like the one he'd just thrown into the fire. Taking a quill, he wrote _You already know what happened_. Then he extended his arm for Fawkes to land on and was gone in a flash of fire, even before the quill managed to hit the desk.

* * *

As the last embers of phoenix fire died down in the Hogwarts' Headmaster's Office, fire blazed up in the small town square of Godric's Hollow. Even at this distance, he could see what woke him up. The cottage was missing the left half of its first story. Whatever caused that also broke the _Fidelius_, probably destroying the place the magic was anchored to. It was the sudden flood of knowledge, no longer bound by magic, that woke him a minute ago.

A second later, the implications hit him_._ He hurried towards the ruin, far quicker than you'd think possible of a man so old.

The gate was destroyed, blown off its hinges. The front door, frame and all, was missing completely, the wall around it looking like it met an inferno. The inside of the house was no better, with bits of furniture, glass and… and flesh. Dumbledore quickly cast a revealing charm, trying to see if there was anyone still alive. Nothing. He cast another charm, and another, and another.

He stood in the middle of the room, wand lowering, as hope fled; all spells already cast. Nobody. He seemed visibly shrunken and in that moment, he looked to be every one of his hundred years. Deep wrinkles framed two sad, resigned eyes. Death was an old acquaintance of Dumbledore's. Nowadays it visited with Acceptance rather than Rage and Despair.

He looked around the shattered room again, lost in thought. Then, decision reached, he strode towards the stairs, reinforcing where the house looked about to fall down, searching for something. Anything.

As he was climbing the steps, a brilliant white Phoenix shot out of his wand. It faltered as Albus carefully stepped around something that looked like blood. Then it winked out entirely.

Breathing in, then out, he opened his eyes again and spoke the words of the _Patronus _charm. This time, the Phoenix blazed up dimmer, wavering slightly. But it held until he spoke his message, and then it was gone. It had not flown away, or disappeared. It simply _went_.

His wand moved straight into casting repelling wards, more as an afterthought. His eyes intent on his surroundings, expecting Voldemort at any moment. Just because all known and some unknown revealing charms returned negative, it did not mean there was no-one. _What magic can do, magic can undo_. You only had to be powerful enough, and despite all he wasn't, Voldemort did have power.

He avoided what was left of the second bedroom. He would wait for Alastor with that. His eye could see more than he ever could, with both sight and magic combined.

He was just approaching the master bedroom when his Patronus returned and cawed "Coming," in a gruff voice before it dispersed into white mist. It wasn't quite happiness, but it did give him a gentle caress of protective strength. However, even that little bit helped.

Like a plant on a desert, he soaked up every last drop of the comfort it gave him, his shoulders straightening, just a bit. The deep wrinkles of his frown smoothed out, just a bit. It was not much, and still, it was enough.

He opened the door to the bedroom and saw… a chair, a table, a lamp. A double bed in the middle of the room, untouched. Pristine. Flanking it were two nightstands, one had a picture of the three of them, Lily holding Harry, James' arm around her waist. Smiling at the camera. The other nightstand hosted several books.

He carefully took the picture, shrunk it and put it into a robe pocket. He wished he could remember them like that—so happy, so full of life. Before Fate started playing on the strings of their lives.

Then he went over the desk, a small object catching his eye. In the middle, amidst all the parchment, was a bright red box, covered in frost. Attached to it was a note. He had a bad feeling about what this was going to be.

With shaky hands, he picked up the note.

* * *

"Hey, you alright?" he asked as he sat down on the bed next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. "And don't say 'It's nothing', I can see something is troubling you."

"It's… Damnit, you stole my line," she huffed.

"We _are _married, you know. So tell me, what's going on in that pretty head of yours?" He could not let things continue as they were. She was starting to withdraw from him, from both of them.

She turned and looked him in the eye. "It's torture. I want to help. Do something, help… Somehow. And yet… What can I do? Knowing what will happen, but not really, you know, _knowing_, is driving me insane. I want to help. I want to protect him. Protect us all."

Tears were slowly soaking through his shirt as he held her close. "Shhh, s'alright, darling. We'll think of something," he spoke in a soft voice.

"There's nothing… Nothing. I've been thinking about what to do ever since Dumbledore told us. Nothing!"

"Well, tell me what you've thought of so far, maybe I'll think of something. Don't look at me that way, maybe we'll come up with something. Like talking to a rubber duck, but one that talks and also, coincidentally, is your handsome husband." His attempt to lighten the mood fell flat. But she did start speaking, listing all the discarded ideas.

It was some time after she had finished listing all the things that sounded plausible, then the things that were a stretch, and then the clearly impossible. An idea occurred to him.

"What if you didn't focus on protecting him?"

"But that's—" he hushed her with a finger on her lips.

"No, really, listen. What if we tried a distraction. A decoy of some sorts. Can you make something like that?"

"No… wait. Yes, yes I can! And since it won't be Harry, I can also…" she cut herself off, jumping from the bed and shuffling through the desk until she found a spare parchment; muttering to herself as she started drawing.

"Lily? What are you thinking?" he asked, warily. Wearily.

"I think I have something, James," she beamed back at him, before turning back to her writing.

It was well past midnight by the time he convinced her to go to bed. There were few things more dangerous than inventing new magic. Like inventing new magic while sleep deprived. That was a truly explosive combination.

* * *

_If you are reading this, hopefully Harry is under a stasis charm, cooled to stop body activity and transfigured into the sphere in the box. I am trying to create a decoy that can drain and re-channel magic back into the caster. I do not know if it is going to work._

—_Lily_

Under it, in less tidy handwriting were two words.

_He's here_

Dumbledore stared at the note in shock. _What in the name of—… How—… _

He shook himself, aimed his wand at the box and gently untied the ribbon, opening the box and transferring the small green sphere to the bed before warming it and casting the softest _Finite_ in his life. It was dangerous to transfigure living beings. But if it had worked…

He cancelled the stasis charm with bated breath.

The eerie silence was pierced by a baby's wail.

* * *

"I don't know _what_ happened there, Albus," said Alastor as he sat down on a chair. "Do _you _have any idea what happened? I only found a huge bloody hole in the house and this." He held a piece of wood that was cracked down the middle, revealing a faintly glowing strand.

Dumbledore stared at the broken wand. _Voldemort's wand_. Did that mean he was dead?

"Albus." The voice tore him out of his thoughts. "I need you to tell me what you know. You can mourn James and Lily after we sort this fucking mess out."

"My apologies, Alastor. I have to ask, however. Do you have someone watching the place?"

Alastor smiled. "You."

Dumbledore nodded, humming and handed him the note. "All I know is this."

He had appeared in the Hogwarts Infirmary just moments after Harry woke up, startling Poppy. He didn't know what happened in Godric's Hollow, but you first cared for the living. All else came after. Harry seemed to be in perfect health, and was sleeping again, Fawkes crooning over the crib.

"It didn't work as intended, I assume," Alastor spoke, "a flawed runic array, with huge amounts of power poured into it… That would explain the hole."

"And the wand," Dumbledore added.

"Aye. So what now, Albus?"

"I don't know, Alastor. I really don't know," Dumbledore sighed. This was going to be a long night.

"Let's go back to the house. Run some scans, salvage what can be salvaged," Alastor offered.

Dumbledore looked at Harry once again, before nodding. Neither of them spoke of the bodies.

"Try thinking of how we are going to explain this to the public," Dumbledore said as he squeezed the bridge of his nose. "It looks like Voldemort is dead. But we can't just tell them what happened. If we say Lily defeated him, nobody will believe us. If we don't say anything, they will assume that it was Harry who defeated him, survived the Killing curse or something similarly absurd."

"They'd ape it up, aye. Might be fun to watch," Moody grinned momentarily, before sobering again. "What about you, Albus, why don't you take the credit?"

"I don't want to take credit for that. I don't want to become a hero… It feels like injustice. Lily and James died to make it happen, not me. It's a terrible feeling, Alastor. To be heralded and praised as the hero, while all the sacrifices are forgotten." There were still names, names nobody else spoke of. Names of people that made it possible for him to defeat Grindelwald. Names to which would be added those who fought and died in the war against Voldemort. It was human nature. To forget history.

"Let's tell the truth, then," Alastor suggested. "Tell them that he came to kill the Potters, but something happened. Something happened that blew half the fucking house down, and Voldemort with it. Something that saved Harry."

"It wasn't something, Alastor. It was Lily. I'm not sure if she even told James. You know how she was, always so secretive with her projects," he said as he remembered.

"I know, Albus… I don't know, I'm not made for this. I kill bad people, torture and kill worse people. I don't do politics. If it was up to me, the slander-crib they call the Daily Prophet would be in flames faster than you can say _Aguamenti_," Alastor replied. "But it's something, and I don't see a different way. You don't either. If you have something, fine. But they are going to find out, sooner or later. Every day the war drags on, we are losing funds, people are taking measures against dangers that will no longer be real. The country is _crippled_, Albus. It's weeping at its knees, for fuck's sake. You have to tell them _something_. _Soon_." Alastor was staring at Dumbledore.

"You're right, Alastor. But… I'll think about it," he cut in as Alastor was about to launch into another argument. They shouldn't argue. Not now. Not now. "Let us go back there. I'll hop back and think about this once we're done."

This was going to be a long night.

* * *

The hourglass spun. He felt Time itself flow around him, drawing him back into the past that was the present.

He apparated to Godric's Hollow.

The hourglass spun. He felt Time itself flow around him, sucking him back into the past that was also the present.

He sent Fawkes with the note to himself.

The hourglass spun. He felt Time itself scrape against him, yanking him back into the past that was also the present.

He met with Barty Crouch. He met with Millicent Bagnold. He met with Amelia Bones. Maybe that would be enough. It probably wasn't.

The hourglass spun. He felt Time itself scream against him, hurling him back into the past that was also the present.

You could only travel so far back in time. After six hours, Time simply refused to be stretched further. Stretching it to its limit, however, was not pleasant. _All things take their toll on us_.

He went to the infirmary. Then he went to Godric's Hollow.

The hourglass spun, twice. He felt the infinite might of Time press down on all his being, the chasm between _now_ and _then _bridged again. He felt as though his very _self_ was remade; duplicated; transported through time.

He spun, blurry stretches of purple robes and white beard wrapping into themselves; and the air behind him closed. It had been a very long night. It was not over yet.

* * *

The tombstone was carved from dark marble, small and nondescript. They were people before they were heroes, and Dumbledore would make sure it stayed that way. No statues. No Potter day. Harry wouldn't want that. The funeral was attended sparsely. Most friends they had were dead. _I hope they're happy, on their next great adventure. I'll protect the boy, as best as I can. You have my vow_.

The funeral had been a small, quiet affair. The eye of the storm in the middle of all the celebrations, as the dark shadow of Voldemort lifted from Britain, as more and more Death Eaters were caught, shops opened and the whole country released a long-held breath. As everyone tried not to think about who they've lost in the last decade.

Underneath their names, there was a barely-visible carving of a flower flanked by antlers. Hidden within the lines was a circle within a triangle, divided in half by a line. _The last enemy that shall be defeated is death_, read the inscription.

* * *

He watched as the boy cried in the arms of his mother, who was running small circles on his back; a Phoenix on his shoulder. He would need all the comfort he could get today. And tomorrow, he would need his friends and family. To heal.

Dumbledore had deliberated for so, so long. In the end, he decided that today would be the day. The day he would tell him why his mum and dad were named Greengrass, not Potter. That he had both. He deserved to know, even as he did not deserve to have to bear the knowledge.

Today was also the first time they took him to his vault. They had found letters, addressed to Harry, as well as the final wills of the Potters. Before they went, they told him to leave the rest be; they couldn't go in with him and make sure it was all safe, only a Potter could enter the vault.

They needn't have bothered. The moment the vault door opened, they saw the letters on a small pedestal at the front. Harry didn't even spare a glance at the rest, gathering the envelopes with more reverence and care than a millenium-old-scroll and leaving.

Then he asked if they could visit their graves.

He hadn't even opened the letters yet.

"I wish," the boy spoke between sobs, "I wish I could do magic. So that… that I could make them flowers right now."

Dumbledore wished he could do more than magic. But he couldn't. Nobody could undo time. Not even the people of Atlantis could do that, before the empire fell.

* * *

_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… _

_born to those who have thrice defied him, _

_born as the seventh month dies._

_And the Dark Lord shall make him into his equal, _

_but he shall have power the Dark Lord knows not… _

_And either must die at the hand of the other, _

_for neither can live while the other survives… _


	5. Chapter 5: Volatile

**A/N:** I seem to have run afoul a terrible monster. Its main hunting grounds are the office, the campus and the student bedroom. I am sure you have heard of it; it is called Procrastination (_lat.: tempus atrophia_). Thankfully, I managed to escape with only minor injuries. That said, I am posting the next chapter in case I meet another one in the wild. They are very messy to deal with.

P.S. I am still searching for a beta for this story. If you'd be interested, feel free to PM me!

* * *

**Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ V — Vᴏʟᴀᴛɪʟᴇ**

"_There are a thousand things you should not do, even if you can, for every one you should."_

—_Albus Dumbledore_

* * *

Snoring echoed throughout the dark room. Harry was already thanking whoever was thoughtful enough to provide Silencing Charms on their bed curtains. It certainly made life in a dorm a lot more manageable. His watch showed it was five eighteen. He had always been an early riser.

Trying to be as silent as he could, he flicked the little switch next to his trunk lock and then opened it. A few moments later, his head disappeared into the trunk and the lid closed soundlessly behind him. The ladder went down to a small room full of bookcases and drawers. Weren't space-expansion runes wonderful? There was even a small table and chair for writing, as well as a bed. Just in case.

After dressing, he slowly climbed up, pushing the lid open with an invisible hand. He didn't really need to use his Invisibility Cloak, but he had wanted to use it for _something_ ever since he got it yesterday. The castle was asleep, and that meant it was time to explore.

* * *

The letters above the double doors read _Library_. They creaked a little when he opened them, and Harry cringed. It wasn't as if he was doing anything against the rules. The Hogwarts Library was open at all times, if you didn't need the help of the librarian. Even the Invisibility Cloak was perfectly within the school rules. Apparently, they were rare enough that no bans or restrictions had ever been made. Still, creaking doors before sunrise were _creepy._

Harry had always felt that calling the place _a _library did not do it justice. It was _the _Library. It was probably bigger than the Great Hall. _No, scratch that, it is definitely bigger than the Great Hall_, he had spent quite a significant amount of time in Hogwarts growing up, and he _still_ got lost in the Library. Most people never bothered, relying on Mrs Pince and her retrieval charms. But there was just something about the endless labyrinthine shelves of books that made Harry want to come back here. That, and he was sure that there were a lot more books than the librarian had access to. _Some _knowledge was just too shy to be found that easily.

Moving past the front with its many chairs, tables, armchairs and couches, he walked past an archway that marked the beginning of the Library proper. It was not as well-lit as the study area, and instead of bright yellow, the books were bathed in dim red. Taking the main staircase, he went down a flight of stairs. Then another. Turning right, he went down yet again.

This was the Runes section, and he was on a mission. Yesterday, he started thinking about why wands didn't have runes on them. It seemed so simple, once it occurred to him—engrave some into the wand, and it can be more accurate. More volatile. More… _magical_.

But then again, he wasn't stupid. That was why he was trying to find something to double check. But it couldn't possibly go wrong… _right?_

He was deep into the curving maze of the Library at this point. The books looked a little older, and the titles were starting to sound more and more archaic. He was quite sure that the shelves would have a thick layer of dust on them, if it wasn't for magic.

He went further still. _Down, down, left, down, right, straight, left… or was it right?_

_Ah heck. _He was lost, wasn't he? He just realised he could not remember how he came here. He knew he was trying to get into the 'W' section to look for wand runes, but looking around, he only saw books. Lots and lots of books. Brown, black, green; leather, parchment, scroll.

_Hogwarts is a peculiar place, Harry. If you wander too far, it might prove quite hard to find you. You see, Hogwarts is more than just a place. It is a cornerstone of the place, and yet it is more than just a castle. You can walk for miles in the same direction, following the same straight corridor, and end up walking out of the door next to the one you entered. But fear not, you can usually find a portrait soon enough, you can always ask them!_

The only problem was that there were no portraits in the Library. But it was still Hogwarts, and so he had no idea where he actually was. He was starting to doubt whether he was still in Scotland. He probably was. But then again, he was probably lower than the Dungeons, and... _Where would you even fit something this size? Surely the castle isn't _that _big._

_I wonder, if I go forward, will I end in a graveyard or in some tower?_ It seemed wiser to turn back and try to come where he came from. He was quite sure the last turn was a left.

…

Right?

* * *

He was desperately trying not to look at his watch. He didn't want to know how much time had passed since he entered the Library. It was not as if it would change anything. He really hoped he did not miss his first class. _Damn_.

He was starting to see why most people didn't bother going into the Library. Alone._ Very smart of you, Harry, good job lad, _he thought as he gave himself a mental pat on the shoulder. Rounding a corner, he saw a bare stretch of stone. That was something new. Most walls were either made from books, scrolls or old stone tablets with writing scratched into them.

Two fingers trailing the smooth stone, he walked along the wall, trying to decipher why he was feeling so weird. _It's just a wall, it's just a wall, it's just a wall_, he chanted inside his own mind. The hallway curved slightly, so he couldn't even see the end of it. After what felt, and could possibly have been, forever, he felt a bump.

Adrenaline flooding his system, he jumped away, crashing into a bookshelf and wincing at the dull _thud_ his shoulder made against a shelf. _Ow_.

He had been lost in thought, trying to think of a way out, or figure out what this wall was, when his fingers suddenly dipped into something _cold_. He slowly approached the wall, but there was nothing there. Shakily, he placed his hand, fingers outstretched, on the stone. The moment he touched the stone, he felt a cool _something _running down his palm in a straight line. _Some kind of ward?_

From the outside, it looked just like the wall to the right, or to the left, but there was definitely something there. After standing there for a while, he shrugged. He had no idea what this was. After a quick discussion, all parts of him agreed to continue along the wall. Not even a minute later, he came across a bigger hallway from the left. The stone wall moulded into another archway, covered in faintly glowing blue runes. It looked as if there was a waterfall of Magic running down the archway. He wasn't sure touching it would be the best thing to do. Trying to read the runes, his eyes trailing to the peaked top, his brain experienced a mental hiccup. _The Restricted Section_.

He really, really, really wanted to remember where this was. This was like the coolest place in the whole Library, and that was saying something, considering it was basically made out of books.

He was out of his depth. The entrance was covered in unfamiliar runes, and he couldn't even begin to fathom what to do now. He sighed. He was good in Runes. But the archway served as a great reminder that he was no Albus Dumbledore. He really wished he could return here later and work on it, when he wasn't lost, and wasn't probably late for Transfiguration._ If only I had a map—…_

_Oh. Right._

Hogwarts wasn't a place. It was a direction. It was never built, but conjured by the Founders. You couldn't draw a map of something that wasn't a place. You couldn't build something that was not a place. Harry blamed it all on the early morning hours. He totally forgot that just yesterday, in fact, he had acquired a map that did seem to deal with Hogwarts pretty well.

_Well, there goes that._ And with that, thoughts of power and world conquest put aside, he pulled out the Marauder's Map, whispering the password. As patterns started to trace along the parchment, he sat on the floor. It was going to take a while to unfold it until he found the exit. He had been walking for a while.

He twisted his arm until the faint red light shone on his wristwatch. After a quick glance, he was glad to see he could still make it to class if he hurried and skipped breakfast. He'd rather not be late to his first-ever class in Hogwarts.

* * *

Harry was excited. Today was Thursday, and that meant his first proper Potions class. He had always liked Potions. Oh sure, he could see the usefulness of Charms. Maybe even Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts, to an extent. He couldn't really think of a way to use what he learned in those two classes on a daily basis, though it was fun. A match to a needle to a match to a needle to a stick to a match to a needle. It was _fun_. But not that useful, not really. He gave an inner shrug. _Well-rounded education never hurt nobody… okay, maybe it did, but that's besides the point._ It would probably come in handy at one point or another.

Or maybe he was just biased.

Still, it was better than History of Magic.

Learning that he could do magic, but could not actually, y'know, _do_ it, as it required a wand and you could not get that until you turned eleven. It was like giving someone a puppy, and then telling them a week later it was just a transfigured block of wood.

To console him, Dumbledore had told him there _were_ subjects he could start learning before he got his hands on a wand. So, at the age of six—he would later learn this was the age muggle children started going to school—he and Daphne got their first private class with Professor Snape. And then he learned that his mother—his first mum, he had two now—was good in potions too _and _she had been friends with Snape. He was a strict teacher, and quite unpleasant when he messed something up. But he did know his bottles, and that's what mattered most.

Two years later, he discovered a book about Ancient Runes. That winter, he spent most of his time in his room, and in the spring he crawled out of his cave reading Old Norse poetry. You can imagine how the rest went. _Daphne found it funny. So did mum._

But he couldn't take Ancient Runes until his third year, so he would have to be content with Potions for now. Which wasn't all that hard. He was practically jumping around the Ravenclaw common room as he waited for Daphne. It was a wonder he did not start to spontaneously levitate.

"Hey, Harry, how'd you sleep?" she asked as she came down the stairs, smiling as Harry hugged her, took her hand immediately started walking towards the exit. "Excited, are we?"

"Yes, well, it's Potions," Harry replied with a small smile.

"Yeah, be glad you have me. Otherwise you'd be paler than a Vampire," Daphne chuckled.

"Would not!" came the indignant reply.

"Actually, yeah, you're probably right," he said into the silence as they were waiting for a staircase to grace them with its presence a few minutes later.

She just rolled her eyes. Harry stuck out his tongue. He knew she liked Potions too. _Honestly, who doesn't? Potions were neat! It was a bit like water, but magic._

As they entered the near-empty Great Hall, they were surprised to see Susan already sitting at the Hufflepuff table talking with Hannah and Sally-something-something. _That girl looks like she'll be gone tomorrow,_ Harry thought absently. Susan waved them over when she noticed them.

After the introductions, Hannah told them her friend told her that her friend told her that Goyle, one of Malfoy's friends-slash-bodyguard-wannabes, stole Weasley's _something _during their first flying lesson and they went on a chase. It ended with someone falling off the broom, managing to survive with only a broken wrist, and Goyle getting _heaps_ of detention. All the while Hooch was fetching a broom—one of the ones she brought to the lesson were broken.

"Um, so she just told them not to go flying in _broomstick_ class while she went somewhere?" Susan asked incredulously. "Hold on, does she know that the _worst possible thing_ to do if you want someone _not_ to do something is to tell them not to do it? And don't even get me started on leaving a class of Slytherins and Gryffindors alone!"

"Hey, at least they don't give them beater bats until October," Harry replied.

Hannah and Daphne both nodded, equally horrified at _that _image.

_Something really ought to be done about broomstick classes_. _Why not just rename them to Quidditch prep. and make it voluntary? _

He said just that. "I mean, with Apparition, Portkeys, the Floo Network, isn't it a bit pointless to teach kids to ride on brooms?"

"You forget, there's also Dragons, Hippogriffs, Abraxans, enchanted umbrellas, and I think I once read about a carriage that was dragged by a flock of Grindylows," Daphne ticked off her fingers, one by one.

"You forgot Phoenixes' flame travel," Harry added, thoughtfully. "Yeah, there really are a few ways better than broomsticks for getting places."

"Anyway," Hannah started, "I've heard that Professor Snape is really strict. He deducted so many points from Gryffindor yesterday that they went into negative points." She did look a bit afraid to go down to the Dungeons.

"Better than Harry blowing up a feather in his face," Daphne said with a giggle. "With a _Levitation Charm_, no less. How'd you do that, anyway, were you trying to make it into a rocket?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Honestly, I try to make _one lousy rocket_. When are you going to stop going on about that?" Missed pronunciation, that's how.

"Oh I don't know, maybe when you have kids so that I can tell them too," she shot back with an evil smile.

When he discovered that muggles wrote some really good books, he started reading a lot more. That is how he came across one with rockets… And you know how little boys and rockets were. The disadvantage of knowing Potions was that he could make a pretty good rocket engine at the age of nine. Not that it worked that well; he went about the next two months without eyebrows, as if he was _still_ surprised it had blown up in his face. He wasn't, not really. That was the day he resolved to build his next rocket _after _he learned some basic charms. And maybe he would add some runes too.

* * *

The Potions laboratory looked like the base of a mad vampire scientist. Dried plants hung from the ceiling, and there were jars with all sorts of ingredients alongside the walls. The room looked like it should have been damp and chilly, but it wasn't. There was the slight shifting of air that accompanied all Potions laboratories, with air-fresheners working overtime to get rid of any fumes that might escape. Rows of desks lined the classroom, each with two chairs and two burners in the middle.

He had arrived to the lab a full thirty minutes early. Yes, he was good in Potions. But he got there by working hard, not by waiting for a blessing. He decided it never hurt to go through some of the material before class.

He lifted his backpack from the floor (weren't featherlight and extension charms just wonderful?) and pulled out a small book bound in black leather. It wasn't the standard-issue Potions text. Actually, there were only three copies of this book in the world so far. The other two belonged to Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape, the man who wrote it. It wasn't even finished yet.

Harry had been amazed when Snape showed it to him last year, telling him he wanted Harry to have one. He wasn't quite sure whether the Professor had given it to him as a gift or as a sheer precautionary measure so that he would not blow himself up.

Harry liked to invent stuff, and this book was a veritable gold mine for information about ingredients and processes, as well as the standard cookbook-esque recipes.

He had added his own little improvement to it, stitching small runes along the cover, so that the book was not taller than he was wide. There was a _lot_ of Potions trivia and even more recipes in this book. And then there were the secret sections, with all the spells and such. It was a _great _book.

Lamplight glinted from the silver letters on the front. _The Brewer's Guide to Potion-making_. Underneath, in bright green were two words: _Don't panic._

Some twenty minutes later found him re-reading the sections on asphodel when the door to the Potions classroom flew open, rebounding from the wall and slamming shut behind the man that strode into the cluster of children, desks and cauldrons. He hadn't even noticed the classroom fill up.

_Yeah, actually, pretty spooky. _He had tried to tell Hannah that Professor Snape wasn't evil, just strict. _Not that she believed me_.

"Quiet," said the low voice of Severus Snape. The last few kids went silent.

He proceeded to the roll call, giving a brief nod when everyone was present. Then he slowly drew himself up and walked to the centre of the classroom.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making." It was a quiet speech, but everyone heard it through the total silence that spread across the room. McGonagall was strict. Snape was downright menacing. "Making potions is not flashy, there is minimal wandwork and pretentious chanting. If you see colorful sparks, you are probably doing something wrong." He paused, looking from one student to the next.

"I suspect many of you will not be able to appreciate the subtle artistry that brewing potions provides. But there is a sort of integrity to the simmering cauldron, shimmering fumes and glimmering vials. There is power, barely contained, within each stoppered bottle. It can grant the power to break a man's will; the power to break a man's heart. The power to bend Magic towards your own desire, bewitch the mind, ensnare the senses… I can teach you how to bottle flame, brew glory, even stopper death. All that and much more, provided you don't exhibit the same talent at tipping over cauldrons as those dunderheads Weasley and Thomas. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought the boys to have sworn vengeance against pewter."

There was more silence. _Did he just make a joke?_ Harry looked at Daphne. Daphne looked back at Harry. They both shrugged. _Probably yes. Oh well, there are weirder things in the world_.

_But still. What?_

"I expect you to be paying attention. I expect you to take notes and take great care not to hurt yourselves or your classmates. Potions is one of the most dangerous subjects you will be taught at Hogwarts. If you are not careful, you could faint, choke, burn, explode, melt, or even simply die. Brewing potions is doing surgery on Mother Nature. Be careful, be precise, be exact. Is that clear?"

There was yet more silence.

"It is customary to provide an answer when the teacher poses a question," Snape drawled. "Should I start thinking you are impolite as well as uneducated?"

"No, sir," came a small voice from the back of the classroom.

"Is that clear?" he asked again, putting emphasis on every word.

"Yes," came a weak chorus from the class.

"Very well, then. We will start with the Antidote for Common Poisons. Please open your textbooks on page thirty-six. It is as easy to brew as they come and I have every confidence you will manage it quite well on your own, provided you are capable of at least successfully making a cup of tea. All ingredients and procedures are listed in the book; if you have questions, read first, ask second. Mr Potter, Miss Greengrass, I expect you to continue where we left off."

They got a few sidelong glances from their classmates until Snape asked what they were waiting for in a voice that would have scared off a griffin, and those were creatures of courage.

The introduction to the class over, they looked at each other, nodded and got to work. The Enhanced Calming Draught was not going to brew itself, after all. As he started cutting the peppermint and Daphne held the lavender above the flame, he started reflecting on what the first week had been like so far.

* * *

"Today, we will be learning the _Levitation Charm_, one of the simplest feats of magic there are," squeaked Flitwick. He was standing on a stack of books so high Harry wondered how did he manage to keep his balance. He looked a bit like a statue, one made by a very confused sculptor—the person was too small and the pedestal too large. There were some really obscure books in the stack too. _Conductivity of Serpent Venoms_ sounded like something that should be kept out of sight.

* * *

"Whoa, that woman just turned into a cat. How can I do that?"

* * *

"Professor, I was wondering, why do Aurors not have runes that make something like _Protego_? Or, actually, why don't wizards have warming runes on their clothes?" Harry asked. It had never really occurred to him, but after Professor Quirrel started the lesson outlining the plan for their first year… There had to be a catch, right? If other humans were the most dangerous enemy, why not protect yourself—

"Very good question, Mr Potter. The answer is just as simple, and just as striking," the balding man replied, "even if it is not what you were hoping for, I assume. Simply put, when struck by other magic, such as a hex or a curse, the Runic Array could become unstable. I trust you can fill in the rest." His smile was small and ever so sinister.

"Oh," said Harry in a small voice. That… sounded like a very, very good reason why there would be no runes on clothes. _Something about a rocket comes to mind… _

* * *

He was just reflecting on their first Occlumency session with Dumbledore when it happened.

"Longbottom, what do you think you're doing?" came the near-shout from Professor Snape. Harry nearly cut himself as he was jerked from his reverie.

"N-n-nothing, P-professor," stuttered the boy, his full fist slowly withdrawing from above the cauldron. He looked terrified.

"Can you explain, Mr Longbottom, why you were talking with your classmate instead of following the instructions?" asked Snape. _This wasn't going to end well._ "Do you have any idea what you were about to do, boy?"

"N-no, Professor."

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, absently waving his wand and turning the flame below Neville's cauldron off. "There are _three_ ingredients, Mr Longbottom. Three. Does anyone know what happens when you add sodium to boiling water?"

After a moment, Harry raised his hand. It didn't look like anyone else knew.

"Yes, Mr Potter?"

"It explodes, sir."

"Correct. Take one point for Ravenclaw, Mr Potter. This is not cooking, Mr Longbottom. You don't throw all ingredients into the cauldron and expect a miracle. If you put in an explosive before treating the solution to be inert, you are going to blow up your hand, desk, and quite possibly more than that. You are getting a T from today's class, Mr Longbottom, and I will be taking five points from Hufflepuff for your carelessness that endangered your fellow classmates. I also expect a three-paragraph on why order is important in brewing by next week. You are dismissed."

The boy looked ready to cry. Harry was torn. On one hand, what Neville did was incredibly stupid, and he needed to understand that if he wanted to keep ten fingers for the rest of his life. _But… that was a bit harsh._

"Back to work," snapped Snape, "I hope you were able to either continue brewing or stabilse your potions during this debacle. If I see anyone else make a mistake like Mr Longbottom here did today, I shall be very displeased." Harry heard someone gulp.


End file.
